I focus almost exclusively on PvP, whether solo, small gang, or large bloc warfare. In the past, I've been a miner, mission runner, and faction warfare jockey. I'm particularly interested in helping high-sec players get into 0.0 combat.

Friday, February 28, 2014

After a couple weeks’ absence from our Friday night low-sec
roam, I was finally able to participate again.
Two weeks doesn’t seem like that much, but my fleet mates had dropped
sec status by about 1-2 points each. That sounds like a lot of missed fun.

So, I was eager to jump right on in. And this time, I brought a artillery-fit
Rifter that cost a whopping 10 million.
Though it matters little when it comes to how well you fly, there’s
something intensely satisfying in being the top damage dealer on nearly all my
kills. And that’s the situation I was in
with this fit. In an artillery Rifter,
your optimal + falloff is about 12 km.
Fighting at around 7500 meters gives pretty good damage, though your
alpha strike is far better than your dps.

But the fun part is how little I care about dying in
it. I typically fly T2 Minmatar ships
that run between 200 mil and 500 mil each.
Suffice to say, it took a bit of time to adjust my thinking. Defense and “maybe I shouldn’t…” simply don’t
exist. We didn’t even bat an eye when we
found a Vexor (typically a frigate killer when fit with webs, particular T1
frigates). To our surprise, it dropped
extremely quickly.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

So, I had written my post about CFC hegemony before I saw
James315’s post about the CFC and stagnation. My post is more about dominance, not complete
victory, but it was close enough that James’ post was particularly interesting
to me. Go ahead and give it a read…

I’m impressed by nearly all of it. He goes into a lot of depth about history and
how the allies of the past are enemies of the future. And that’s all true, which makes his argument
compelling.

But there is one glaring error in the thinking behind his
well-reasoned argument. His syllogism is
correct, with sound logic and a sound conclusion. But it’s nonetheless false, since one of his
premises is false, albeit not flawed.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Frequent readers may have noticed my absence. I just finished the first week of my new job,
moved to a new city the week before, had to sort all our boxes (success!), and
keep a close eye on the kids to make sure they’re acclimating well, all while
trying to figure out exactly where the supermarket, doctor, barber, etc. all
are.

Suffice to say, I’ve had little time for Eve.

But I’ve still been thinking about Eve, even though I
haven’t had a chance to play. And my
thoughts have been continuously resting on the headshot of N3 in 0-W778.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

This one is going to be odd.
I don’t know where I’m going with it as I write it, so we’ll see how
this turns out. I’m of two minds
regarding whether small-gang warfare is truly coming to an end, or whether it’s
simply in desperate need of innovation.

The number of skill points of an average pilot is
increasing, meaning they can fly better ships and more easily fly with boosters

Warp speed changes make slowing down and tackling roaming
gangs easier, meaning nano and kiting gangs are nearly impossibly to fly these
days (a familiar tactic of hunters).

Pilots are generally very risk-adverse, and simply won’t
engage unless odds are overwhelmingly in their favor.

This has, he states (and re-states from his alliance mate),
caused a general up-tick in the size of “small gang”. The risk-adverse nature of Eve players naturally
means fleets responding to invaders are increasing in size – no one wants to
reward roamers with a whole fleet of kills, which only encourages more
roamers. But hunter gangs themselves
will increase in size: defenders are bringing more logi, which means the
hunters need more dps to break that logi.
As players become more experienced, they learn to anticipate everything,
which tends to make them more risk adverse (“I’m not undocking without five
logi”). So fifteen is increasingly becoming fifty.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

In my last article, I talked about how fear can paralyze
your decision-making process, and suggested a procedural approach to coping
with unfamiliar and fearful situations.
But fear serves critical purposes, such as encouraging innovation and intelligent
flying.

It’s important to distinguish between at least two different
kinds of fear, panic and paranoia. Panic
is sudden fear that interrupts your decision-making process, such as what I
discussed in the last post. But paranoia
is a type of fear born of the knowledge of all the things that conspire to
obliterate you in Eve.

In the real world, paranoia is the belief that everyone is
out to get you. I suppose paranoia
doesn’t really exist in Eve, since everyone IS out to get you. But the common element – suspicion of
everything – still holds true, so I’ll use the term fairly.

Space is a big place, and in Eve, every session affords you
plenty of threats you should genuinely fear.
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that this is ultimately a game. Maybe you’re jumping that low/high gate for
the first time wondering what you’ll find.
Maybe you’re participating in your first tidi grind and worried that
you’ll face soul-crushing lag and lose all control of your ship. Maybe it’s your first time hitting that “jump
to xxx” button in your new carrier.

Fear is natural. Fear
is useful. But fear can also turn to
terror and leave you unable to make rational decisions.

Everyone who has ever entered low or null has faced the
familiar scenario. You load grid in your
Drake only to find a dozen ships orbiting the gate with drones out. If you’re in null-sec, they’ll even have a
Sabre to trap the pods of any unfortunate victims. Maybe one of those interceptors is starting
to get pretty close to decloaking you.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

We've had so many reports of null-sec politics updates that
I really must comment on them. After
all, it’s not every day null-sec entities decide to shuffle the deck so
completely. Let’s look at how it all
started, though, before going into the detail about what’s happening now.

B-R was a turning point in null-sec politics this year (and
yes, I’ve written about the consequences to PL and given a few musings in fictional form. Prior to it, N3 and PL combined were widely
believed to hold an overwhelming advantage in titan and supercarrier
power. Already, PL has proven their
willingness to drop supers on anything with a pulse, as well as a long-standing
network of cyno alts that allow them to bridge to any capital fight anywhere in
the galaxy within about fifteen minutes’ notice. No other null-sec entity can do that.

PL had always snuck under the radar by not owning very much
space themselves. Sure, they had plenty
of moons, but tracking moon ownership without the corresponding sov ownership
is difficult at best. How many moons do
they own? I’m sure some of the CFC
logistics folks know, but it’s not widely known.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

From time to time, I'm approached by an alliance-mate or friend who really wants to post something for wider distribution. 1Robert McNamara1 felt very strongly about the conflict-driving nature of high-sec POCOs and submitted the following piece.

Something very strange is happening in high-sec. There are wars with purpose. I’m impressed with CCP they gave small and
large groups a rope to pull on, tied with the knots of war. Along with it, several new conflict drivers
in high-sec.

The larger conflict driver is Player Owned Customs Offices
(POCOs). RvB, Goons, and other large
groups are clearing Interbus offices en mass, with smaller groups doing much
the same. Naturally Caldari space is
getting most of the attention.

What’s interesting about the high-sec angle is that it’s
shaping up to be the sub-capitol baby brother of null-sec style fights and
conflicts. This new age of POS-lite
warfare has people looking at planets to see who owns it and declaring war if
they think they can take and defend… Big
sov blocs like Goons and N3 will have momentary distractions, giving the little
guys chances to take planets. Not sure
what could distract a group like RvB however they may be poised to own huge
swaths of empire space.

We just passed is the land grab period. Most un-defended planets in Caldari space
have been claimed. Now is a period of
real conflict as null-blocks and empire fighters trade fleets for POCOs. All of this leaves the carebears with an
awkward arrangement...

The PI carebear now has a vested interest in throwing their
lot in with a PVP group that can defend a network of planets. This is remarkable as currently only null-sec
offers such a driver for PVE to seek out PVP groups. This gives the high-sec groups a reason to
cut their PVP teeth. A reason to
organize and fight for ‘turf’. Good
preparation for the larger scale conflicts.

Given that high-sec lacks the same tools for force
projection, it may well be that it will be divided up by local groups who
reside in a given constellation or region.
Hopefully we see more high-sec conflict drivers like this from CCP. It stands to reason as the empires lose their
dominion over high-security pod players.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Occasionally, you come across one of those real-life
examples of a thought exercise.
Teamspeak servers across New Eden are filled with people discussing
fictional fights, the tactics each side should use, what would be an equal
fight for each ship type. How many and
what type of ships would a Sleipnir have to face for the victorious pilot to
have bragging rights?

When you have the opportunity to experience one of those theoretical
fights in real life, it’s something special.

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